Since April of last year I have run a half marathon and a full marathon on trail, two trail 50ks and one 50k mostly paved, a 50 miler, a 100k, a 100 miler, took about 3 minutes off my 5k PB, ran my fastest ever ever mile, rode a 50 miler last year, and a 35 miler last month. I remained happily injury free, and kept ALL my toenails, barely even bruising them. A few weeks ago I took a spill off my horse, landing star-fish styly (no good story about galloping through the woods aboard my wondrous steed to slay a dragon and protect the town - I had no saddle, he jumped sideways, I didn't...). Success at jamming my toe hard enough for it to go black around the edges and painful enough that I took something more than arnica for the first time in three years. The toe hurt worse than the sublaxated shoulder, which other than when I was working, was just inconvenient at reaching things in high places - I'm already disadvantaged with my T-Rex arms. Ten days later we were trying to find a way around a fallen tree (didn't occur to us to carry saws in August), we came across a hornet nest and my riding buddy and I both got stung, and in the kerfuffle lost both horses. In the process of tearing off through the woods trying to find my horse, not paying attention to running form, and smacking the heck out of my leg, firstly to get the buggers off of me, and later to try and ease the stings, I injured my knee. Based on previous experience I have a pretty good idea what may be wrong, but I can't diagnose that without seeing a doctor. (Yes, very familiar with the problems of self-diagnosis and that it's not recommended and I'm not a doctor, so on so on). |
| Ouch! One massive leg |
I tried to go to physical therapy, but you need a referral, and you can't get a referral without an MRI. Oh NHS, I miss you so. I stand by my previous statement when having to pass a thorough medical exam when I emigrated that I wouldn't be moving here if I was sick.
The streak is still going, just with lonely little single miles, mainly for my sanity at the moment. Even if I'm basically power walking the mile, I need that time to myself. I'm going to go for a short test run next week somewhere easy, and see how it's going. Most of the swelling is down, and it's not usually painful for daily activities. If anybody has been to PT for knee injuries I'd love to chat! If it doesn't seem to be getting better I will of course give up the streak, but for mental clarity that isn't an option until next week, just being very careful about it in the meantime.
THANK YOU to all the people who were ready to search the woods for my missing horse. I found my buddy's horse pretty quickly but apparently home is not where my guy flees to. Since it was already getting dark I called two people who live on the street he does and where the trailhead is. Immediately there were ten of us (family, friends, and neighbours) ready to go with more friends down the road texting me to see if they could help, and many more that have since said they would have been right there if I had called and we needed to search for him. Luckily he was found very quickly, obviously realising he had gone the wrong way and was starting to head back for home again. It's very reassuring to know that people will come when help is needed!!!
Ugh! BTW the only knee PT I've had was IT band related and so doesn't seem like it would be similar to what you have.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you've had a tough go of it. Had to LOL at your description of refusing to self diagnose because of the inherent dangers. You probably know better then most what's wrong...but I agree that musculoskeletal stuff is really tricky. Last year I thought I had injuired my knee, but it wasn't until a month later it was pretty clear it was a hamstring (actually think you helped me on that one).